NCAA Investigations

Breakdown of punishments inflicted on Syracuse by the NCAA

Chase Gaewski | Staff Photographer

The NCAA cracked down on Jim Boeheim and the Syracuse athletic program with a series of penalties on Friday, and here is the full list of the punishments from the report.

The NCAA cracked down on the Syracuse athletic program with a series of penalties on Friday at noon. Here is the full list of the punishments from the report.

The punishments, as stated in the summary of the NCAA report, are followed by clarifications based on what we know at this time.

– Five years of probation from March 6, 2015 through March 5, 2020.

Under probation, Syracuse will have to regularly submit reports to the NCAA to prove it is complying with NCAA rules.

– Vacation of all wins in which ineligible men’s basketball students played in 2004-05, 2005-06, 2006-07, 2010-11 and 2011-12 and ineligible football students played in 2004-05, 2005-06 and 2006-07. The public decision contains additional details.



The NCAA did not report the exact number of wins that Syracuse will have to vacate as a part of this punishment, but did say that it includes 10 athletes throughout these years. The Post-Standard has reported that SU basketball will have to vacate 108 wins, which would drop Jim Boeheim to sixth on the all-time wins list. The players cited as ineligible in the report were due to academic infractions by members of the SU Athletics department.

– Fine of $500 per contest played by ineligible students.

Like in the punishment above, the number of games played in by ineligible athletes was not specified by the NCAA report.

– The school must return to the NCAA all funds it has received to date through the former Big East conference revenue sharing for its appearances in the 2011, 2012 and 2013 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.

The report specifies that this includes funds Syracuse is set to receive and that they should be “withheld by the conference and forfeited to the NCAA.” The report continues that a full accounting of this financial penalty should be included in Syracuse’s annual compliance reports to the NCAA.

– Suspension of the head basketball coach from the first nine conference games of 2015-16.

This will not include Syracuse basketball’s game against North Carolina State at noon on Saturday, which will conclude the Orange’s 2015 Atlantic Coast Conference schedule and its season. As of now, it is likely that assistant coach Mike Hopkins will replace Boeheim while he is suspended.

– Reduction of men’s basketball scholarships by three for the 2015-16, 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19 academic years. If the school has already executed scholarship offers for the 2015-16 year, the school may begin the four-year penalty with the 2016-17 year.

It’s not clear at this time how this will affect Syracuse’s scholarships for the 2015-16 year, as SU has already received a verbal commitment from Matthew Moyer. It will likely affect the Orange’s pursuit of top-flight recruits such as center Thomas Bryant (Class of 2015) and guard Tyus Battle (Class of 2016), regardless of what the scholarship situation will be like for those years.

– Reduction in the number of permissible off-campus recruiters from four to two during June 1, 2015 through May 31, 2017.

This punishment will affect the way Syracuse recruits in the next two years by restricting certain actions including the number of off-campus recruiters that can travel to see high school players.

– The panel also accepted the school’s self-imposed postseason ban for the 2014-15 season, but noted that self-imposition of penalties after the conclusion of infractions hearings does not influence the outcome.

This was confirmed by chief hearing officer Britton Banowsky on a media conference all Friday afternoon, who said that he wouldn’t speculate on how a lack of a self-imposed postseason ban would have played into the NCAA’s decision.





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